


To Another

by happinesssdeceit (crescenttwins)



Series: Last Words Soulmate AU [6]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Assumptions made about Hide's family, Drabble, Gen, Light Angst, Pre-Canon, Soulmarks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3954604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescenttwins/pseuds/happinesssdeceit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On what soulmarks mean to Hide and why he talked to Kaneki in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Another

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [To Another](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4205574) by [Selyka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selyka/pseuds/Selyka)



> For the anon ask: "What made Hide talk to Kaneki in the first place?"
> 
> This moved away from the original prompt a bit because I realized that I really want to explore Hide in this 'verse a bit more! It kind of morphed into an answer to this ask as well as a further exploration of the second headcanon I had in this AU.
> 
> A lot of assumptions are made about Hide's family, because I can't seem to find anything on them. OTL 
> 
> Because I like quotes, the title comes from a C.S. Lewis quote: "Friendship is born at that moment that one man says to another: 'What! You too? I thought that no one but myself...'" 
> 
> ANGST WARNING: Please take breaks between parts if you are experiencing any kind of distress; and let me know if there are trigger tags or warnings you would like to be added to any installment in this series.

When Nagachika Hideyoshi is young, he learns that he is strange.  His parents take him to the doctor, who examines his belly with gloved hands and whispers to his parents.  They aren’t sure what it means, to have such a dark soul mark, to have one that is so difficult to read.  Hide learns to be very patient as doctors touch him and ask him questions over and over again. He thinks that it would go much more smoothly if they shared information, because he answers the same questions each time.  But he learns also to comply, because the tightness in his parents’ faces gets worse when he says he doesn’t want to.  

It is two years later that he stops visiting the doctor’s office, but he has learned by that time and wears an undershirt so people won’t see it, even when they change for physical education.  And he doesn’t realize it, but his eyes are always drawn to other’s soul marks and he reads them quietly to himself. They aren’t always happy, but they are all _normal_ — lightly scribed lines not the skin, scars from where they were torn from their perfect match.  And he wonders, sometimes, whether his soul mark means something different, that he isn’t meant to have a soulmate.  That maybe he was broken from the start, and—

And there’s nothing wrong with that, he thinks, kicking out his legs.  There’s nothing wrong with that, being alone in the world.  It just means he won’t be reliant on something as fickle as Fate to choose the people he wants to be with forever.  And if he traces the letters on his abdomen at night, staring at the dark mark, it is because sometimes he wonders what it says.  He wonders if he wants to know.

When he is nearly eight and a half, his father’s soul mark disappears.  Hide stares at the blank expanse of his father’s left wrist as his parents share a kiss over the dinner table, and if he eats anything it fails to fill the hollow in his stomach.  

That night, he hides under his blankets with a flashlight and stares at his soul mark, wonders if they aren’t just some elaborate joke.  Hide stretches the skin with his fingers, squinting at the letters, and he thinks that maybe he can read _Hide_.  It’s a bit anticlimactic, he thinks, tracing the dark letters with a finger.  And maybe it means nothing, but in case it does— in case it does, he can stack the deck in his favor, make his soulmate someone he’s sure he likes. _Hide_ , he repeats to himself.

Later, there will be a boy, a quiet boy, who will come into his class at a strange time with a book tucked under his arm and a lonely face.  His name will be Kaneki Ken, and when the other students in the class try to talk to him, he will keep his head down.  And the other boy will be unlucky, because the other kids in their class won’t be nice in a lot of ways— and they won’t be interested in people who refuse to talk to them.  Hide will watch him from the back of the class, and will wonder if he knows they’ve isolated him, because the pages of his book will stop turning after that.  

That first day, the quiet boy will leave as soon as the bell rings, running to meet a woman at the school gate, and they will look…unhappy together, if Hide is asked to say.  The woman will wear a pinched look, carefully crafted to not look angry, and the other boy’s face will be more stiff than when he introduced himself at the beginning of class. Hide will stare at them through the window until they disappear from view and the teacher asks him if he needs help going home.

And the next day the woman won’t be there, and the new boy will be sitting by himself, waiting and reading.  And Hide will sit down next to him and smile, and he will know that this is how friendship starts.  

And even later, he will ask the other boy— he’ll call him _Kaneki_ , now— to call him _Hide_. And when Kaneki says his name, treasuring each syllable, Hide won’t be able to stop the grin from creeping up his face as he hugs the other boy.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! More writing to come.


End file.
